Adventures in the Mekong Delta

We've just come back from an excellent two day tour of the Mekong delta, in the area south of Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh City, whichever takes your fancy). We left early on Friday morning in a lovely air-con tourist bus for My Tho on the Mekong river. We were with a group of fifteen people of all nationalities who had signed up for the trip and they were (mostly!) good fun. We transferred onto a boat at My Tho, and after a short interval when our boat broke down and we had to clamber onto a replacement (see photo for how far fromt he shore we managed to get before we broke down....) we headed for the many small rivers that comprise the delta.
Our first stop was to see how the local villagers make their famous (?? - we had never heard of it either) coconut candy. Its basically fudge as its made in a similar way - the coconut milk is extracted and then boiled and cooled and cut into pieces. It was delicious, but not as nice as the fresh unadulterated coconut which Andy kept stealing from the back of the machine when no-one was looking. We were then herded to a bee farm where honey is made for the local chai which is a lovely mix of honey, cooked oranges and hot water. I was very brave and held the hive for a photo, the whole thing was buzzing under my hands and it was a very strange sensation! We tried the honey, which is the only honey I've ever eaten which I've liked. You can't get it any fresher than scraping it from under the bees with a spoon!Andy then held the owner's pet python...After a lunch stop we took smaller boats like dugout canoes in groups of four and were given a vietnamese hat each to wear for the duration of the journey. It was very relaxing floating along under the palm trees and dense jungly greenery with our man at the back poleing along. Andy joined in with the rowing - we're still not sure if it was a help or a hindrance.... We were heading for a taste of some of the local tropical fruit, including "green dragon fruit" which has a bright pink outer skin and is white with black seeds inside, and to listen to some of the local music. We all clapped enthusiastically of course but it sounded to us like the discordant mewling of depressed cats. "Auld Lang Syne" in vietnamese was a highlight...
At the end of the day we went by bus to the large town in the area, Can Tho, where we had a free evening which we spent having dinner and a beer with a Kiwi couple who have been travelling since 1998 and are on their way to a ski season in Meribel. They must have been a sight when they landed at Bangkok airport with snowboards...
The next morning was a very early start to get down to the famous floating market - farmers sell their produce on land to people with large boats, who then head down to the floating market to sell to people with small boats, who cluster around the large boats attracted by their "adverts" - long poles on which samples of produce are tied to entice buyers. These people with small boats then sell to the end user, either at markets on land or door to door. Sounds like a good job creation scheme to me... We bobbed about for a while taking photos and watching life go by and then set off further into the delta. There we visited a rice noodle factory where we saw the broken bits of white rice being crushed and boiled, then rolled and steamed to make rice paper, before it is finally cut into long thin strips for the ubiquitous rice noodle. The vietnamese live on the stuff and beef rice noodle soup is a tasty (and cheap!) staple of their diet. After a further visit to a rice factory to see the rice being husked, it was back to Can Tho for a well deserved lunch and the trip back to Saigon.
The trip was extremely hot and sweaty and tiring, and it was the epitome of being a mindless tourist; dragged around on group transport to have things shown to you, but for all that it was very enjoyable and interesting and the Mekong delta is a beautiful place to "mess around in boats". A fun time had by all....